Dear M,
Life (or the World or Nature - or all of it) isn't fair. It just refuses to let us be and continues to toss unfairness at us. But as writers we are a lucky lot.
There are people who see each day as a punishment, and are seething inside, but are unable to do anything about it because they are bound by norms or rules or practices or other weird rules humans go by. But writers (and other creative artists) have a ready tool at their disposal to take care of such situations.
We all know that secretly we always write about people we know. We pretend to be creating characters from sand, developing them from nothing, etc. But what we do not confess (unless the character is a real hero) is that most of our characters originate from someone we know. There is a tinge of them somewhere that we alone can spot (and if someone else spots it you say, Well, whaddya know! I never noticed the similarity).
When our rage or extreme emotions threaten to overwhelm us, we creative folks have that outlet that no one else has. An angry man may go hack the man he's mad at or shower him with curses or damage his precious things or destroy his family or set his house on fire. We do it in our story (or painting, or music). Oh yes, we do. We destroy the man, his family, his life, his precious things, his thoughts, his very character itself. And we find peace in it (and even chuckle about it). That's revenge too - without a drop of blood being shed or property destroyed. It's our own cathartic experience.
Love.
Life (or the World or Nature - or all of it) isn't fair. It just refuses to let us be and continues to toss unfairness at us. But as writers we are a lucky lot.
There are people who see each day as a punishment, and are seething inside, but are unable to do anything about it because they are bound by norms or rules or practices or other weird rules humans go by. But writers (and other creative artists) have a ready tool at their disposal to take care of such situations.
We all know that secretly we always write about people we know. We pretend to be creating characters from sand, developing them from nothing, etc. But what we do not confess (unless the character is a real hero) is that most of our characters originate from someone we know. There is a tinge of them somewhere that we alone can spot (and if someone else spots it you say, Well, whaddya know! I never noticed the similarity).
When our rage or extreme emotions threaten to overwhelm us, we creative folks have that outlet that no one else has. An angry man may go hack the man he's mad at or shower him with curses or damage his precious things or destroy his family or set his house on fire. We do it in our story (or painting, or music). Oh yes, we do. We destroy the man, his family, his life, his precious things, his thoughts, his very character itself. And we find peace in it (and even chuckle about it). That's revenge too - without a drop of blood being shed or property destroyed. It's our own cathartic experience.
Love.
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